John Lewis Quotes

“We all live in the same house, we all must be part of the effort to hold down our little house. When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just... do something about it. Say something. Have the courage. Have the backbone. Get in the way. Walk with the wind. It's all going to work out.”

“We have had a great relationship with the White House.We just had every cabinet person designee of ours meet with the cabinet members of the [Barack] Obama administration on Friday. I've met numerous times with Denis McDonough, they've been nothing but helpful.”

“I think Dr. King would be pleased to see the number of elected officials of color - African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, and progressive whites.”

“But you have to have hope. You have to be optimistic in order to continue to move forward.”

“When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to speak up. You have to say something; you have to do something.”

“That issue has been resolved for years now, and it's been resolved for at least two years in Donald Trump's mind. And to bring that up as justification for John Lewis questioning the legitimacy of a democratic activity that is - has been around since the beginning of our country is wrong.”

“The action of Rosa Parks, the words and leadership of Dr. King inspired me. I was deeply inspired. I wanted to do something.”

“As a young child, it became crystal clear to me that there were certain rights and privileges that other people had that my mother, my father, my grandparents, my great grandparents didn't have - that it was an ongoing struggle to realize the dream of the 14th and 15th Amendment.”

“It was not enough to come and listen to a great sermon or message every Sunday morning and be confined to those four walls and those four corners. You had to get out and do something.”

“Young people can understand, and must understand, that we had success, we had failures, but we never gave up. We never gave in. We never became bitter. We didn't hate. We continued to press on. And that's what we're saying: There are some ups, there are some downs, and when you're not down, you must have the capacity and the ability to get up and keep going.”

“There are still forces in America that want to divide us along racial lines, religious lines, sex, class. But we've come too far; we've made too much progress to stop or to pull back. We must go forward. And I believe we will get there.”

“I grew up very poor in rural Alabama.”

“We never gave up. We didn't get lost in a sea of despair. We kept the faith. We kept pushing and pulling. We kept marching. And we made some progress.”

“[Donald Trump's inauguration] will be the first one that I miss since I've been in Congress. You cannot be at home with something that you feel that is wrong, is not right.”

“Obama is not an African American president, but a president of all Americans. It doesn't matter if you are black, white, Hispanic, he's the president of all races.”

“The vote is precious. It's almost sacred, so go out and vote like you never voted before.”

“Black men and women were not allowed to register to vote. My own mother, my own father, my grandfather and my uncles and aunts could not register to vote because each time they attempted to register to vote, they were told they could not pass the literacy test.”

“We have so many issues today that we need to confront. Comprehensive immigration reform. We have to solve the issue of poverty, the issue of hunger, the issue of war - spending billions of dollars to kill rather than to build. We have to deal with the fact that all of our children should be receiving the best possible education.”

“The vote controls everything that you do.”

“I truly believe that one day we will get there, we will arrive. And if we do it right in America, maybe, just maybe, we can serve as a model for the rest of the world.”

“You have to go with your gut sometimes, and how you feel.”

“When you make mistakes, when you're wrong, you should admit you're wrong and ask people to forgive you.”

“Many of us in Nashville accepted nonviolence as a way of life, a way of living, not simply as a technique or a tactic.”

“What 'March' is saying is that it doesn't matter whether we are black or white, Latino or Asian. It doesn't matter whether we are straight or gay.”

“Before we went on any protest, whether it was sit-ins or the freedom rides or any march, we prepared ourselves, and we were disciplined. We were committed to the way of peace - the way of non-violence - the way of love - the way of life as the way of living.”